Locality and local knowledge of a place

Being able to locate oneself in a (foreign) place can contribute to the feeling of having local knowledge of a place. The basic applications used on mobile devices, especially in smartphones in this category, were Google Maps and BlackBerry Maps.

When using the map features on their phones the participants stated that they felt secure, empowered and local, since they knew that they would never get lost as long as they had their smartphones with them. Wendy explained how she could not find one particular place, although she had been there many times, and how her friend, who had never been to that place, found it via her iPhone:

[Wendy, 23] It is quite interesting that my friends and I are quite against iPhone. I can think of the time that I was meeting a friend at Primrose Hill and she had an iPhone

and I could only remember the way there since I’ve been, and she found it on her iPhone straight away, and I just thought ‘Gosh!’ if I went there on my own, it would absolutely take me ages to remember how to get there. And she just found it by pressing a button and having no being there before and suddenly she knew exactly where she was going. I do think that people who have absolutely no idea where they’re going, obviously it is incredibly useful. And it was for me at that particular time. Sometimes it is sort of nice to say ‘oh I know where I am!’.

Hence, it can be understood that this use of locational information via mobile communication technologies creates a feeling of belonging and local know-how, as the anxiety of getting lost diminishes over time. In one of the focus groups during a discussion about finding your way with the help of smartphone

applications, a common feeling among the participants emerged – that being local is associated with freedom to navigate, as well as to feel secure:

[Researcher] You said locality … does it make you more local?

[Sally, 21] I think so. I used to work in Old Street and used to look at the map to find places where I could have lunch. And I think I know the area quite well already I’ve been working there for two weeks.

[Jonathan, 23] Yes, if you use technology properly, you can become a local before you even have been to a place … you get quite good at Google Maps. You go on street view and you look at exactly what it looks like. And you know sometimes streets look so weird, like the junctions, so you can go on the street view and look exactly where Google Maps is telling you to go. If you use it like that you become a local without even being there. Next time you go, you won’t even have to use it. So you lose that dependency.

[Sophie, 42] I think it is quite the opposite to me [sic]. Even with the help of the technology, and I just feel secure, more secure, but I do not feel local. And I find my ability to feel bodily local, bodily being familiar with the area is lower. Even with similar places like we have the Cavendish Campus, I have been there many many times, but after five times of going there with the help of Google Map, next time I still have to check Google

Maps. You know that place, from Great Portland Street, it is quite easy, but I still feel insecure if I do not check Google Maps [sic]. So I feel quite the opposite.

When navigating through the city using locational information on a

smartphones, the city becomes familiar, and newcomers can feel as if they are local.

That said, even locals cannot know every part of London. In addition to using Google Maps on their smartphones to find their way, some of the respondents from both studies discussed how often they use it, and also how they use it to search for nearby places. This was considered an advantage of such technologies for some, to some extent:

[Sally, 21] Everywhere I go, the GPS is on … And everywhere except here, because I know the area quite well so I can walk [sic].

[Sophie says that she always uses Google Maps to search for the shortest route]

[Sophie, 42] I started to feel very addictive to that [sic].

[Researcher] Dependency?

[Sophie, 42] Yes, dependency. I am very addicted to find, always find the shortest way.

Because I like cycling. It is very important for me to, it is not like point-to-point, what is the exact shortest way from A to B?

[Sally, 21] I use Google Maps almost everyday. Everywhere in London, not only to find where to go, but find like the nearest supermarket or the nearest gym, or whatever. And I also use things like a tube route to find out how to get there fastest by tube or when the next bus is coming. I use it quite often.

It is sometimes more important to know one’s whereabouts than to have something to tell you when to turn right and left. Since maps on smartphones provide the user with familiarity, they can contribute to place attachment and the establishment of a sense of place of somewhere new. According to Fullilove (1996),

‘to be attached is to know and organize the details of the environment’ (Fullilove cited in Scannell and Gifford, 2010, p.3). This form of use of locational information can thus create a form of attachment to a specific spatial environment. In one of the group discussions, Larry explained how he uses his check-ins to remember places that he had visited previously:

[Larry, 35] If I have to meet somebody, and if I have no idea or something, I just know that I look on the Google maps and the station, if I need to go to the station, and then I say what is the name of the place and when I am sure where it was, I would say checked-in on Foursquare.

Although Foursquare is always about self-display and self-presentation, in the quote above Larry implies that his checking-in at a place and sharing locational information is not to present his self or to present a place, but rather to allow him to find that place the next time he visits. As such, it would be erroneous to say that users of mobile and locative media share their locational information with people just because they want to show-off or reveal an aspect of their identity. Although this is certainly true for some, the different aspects of sharing locational information should be analysed. In this case, the places where Larry checks-in are not necessarily special places, as the Spanish Bar was for Rodney. While it may be a very random place, by sharing the information and making it available for later retrieval, Larry is able to generate a kind of local knowledge of London.

Whether used as a tool for the transfer of knowledge or for the discovery of new places in the world, maps have always served our need and desire to be mobile.

Maps have always been portable, and mobility is not only specific to maps that we carry on our mobile devices. However, with the introduction of GPS-enabled mobile technologies into our everyday lives we have started to become dependent on the routes or directions that map applications generate for us. It must be said that this dependency is not only a result of having the technology ready-at-hand, as the very nature of the fast metropolitan lifestyle also plays a role. One cannot communicate directly with fellow commuters or cannot guess who has local knowledge of any given city and who does not, and in this sense, landmarks still play a crucial role as a primary source in learning the spatial environment. That said, mobile communication devices, and especially smartphones, have started to affect

how one navigates, and hence learn new places in a city. As the study reveals, for some, mobile maps allow them, to some extent, to become familiar with new places, but they can also limit our spatial learning if used only as secondary sources of spatial information. Most importantly, as the first cartographic maps of the world reveal, they act not only as supplementary sources, but also as sources of a direct experience, enhancing one’s awareness of the spatial environment socially. To conclude, the maps contained within our mobile devices remind us of our own exploratory and adventurous nature by allowing us to discover and explore things in a serendipitous manner.